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Rudolf Freiherr von Sebottendorff was the alias of Adam Alfred Rudolf Glauer (November 9, 1875 – May 8, 1945 or 1950s), who also occasionally used another alias, Erwin Torre. He was an important figure in the activities of the Thule Society, a post-World War I German political organization that was a precursor of the NSDAP. He was a Freemason and a practitioner of sufi meditation, astrology, numerology, and alchemy.
Early life and influences
Glauer was born in Hoyerswerda, Saxony, Germany, the son of an engine driver from Dresden. He later used the alias Sebottendorff because he claimed that he had been adopted by the Sebottendorff family and had a claim to the title of Freiherr. After a short career as a merchant seaman, Glauer settled in Turkey in 1901 and worked as an engineer on a large estate there. He became an Ottoman citizen.
Glauer was initially interested in Freemasonry and Theosophy. In Turkey, he became interested in numberology, kabbala, and Sufism, especially the Sufism of the untypical Bektashi order. He may well have converted to Islam, although the evidence (from his own semi-autobiographical writings) is unclear on this point. By about 1912, he became convinced that he had discovered what he called "the key to spiritual realization," described by a later historian as "a set of numerological meditation exercises that bear little resemblence to either Sufism or Masonry."Mark Sedgwick, Against the Modern World, p. 66
After fighting on the Ottoman-Turkish side in the First Balkan War, Glauer returned to Germany in 1913. He was exempted from military service during the First World War because of his Ottoman citizenship and because of a wound received during the First Balkan War.
Involvement with the Thule Society
By 1916, Glauer had attracted only one follower. In that year, however, he came into contact with the Germanenorden, and was appointed their Ordensmeister (local group leader) for Bavaria. Settling in Munich, he established the Thule Society, which became increasingly political, and in 1918 established a political party, the German Workers' Party. This party was joined in 1919 by Adolf Hitler, who transformed it into the National Socialist German Workers' Party or Nazi Party.
By then, however, Glauer had left the Thule Society and Bavaria, having been accused of negligence in allegedly allowing the names of several key Thule Society members to fall into the hands of the government of the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic, resulting in the execution of seven members after the attack on the Munich government in April 1919, an accusation that he never denied. Glauer fled Germany for Switzerland and then Turkey.
Later life
After leaving Germany, Glauer published Die Praxis der alten türkischen Freimauerei: Der Schlüssel zum Verständnis der Alchimie (the practice of ancient Turkish Freemasonry: The key to the understanding of alchemy), and then, in 1925, Der Talisman des Rosenkreuzers, a semi-autobiographical novel which is the main source for his earlier life.
He returned to Germany in January 1933, and published Bevor Hitler kam: Urkundlich aus der Frühzeit der Nationalsozialistischen Bewegung (Before Hitler Came: Documents from the Early Days of the National Socialist Movement), dealing with the Thule Society and the DAP. Hitler himself understandably disliked this book, which was banned. Glauer was arrested, but somehow escaped (presumably due to some friendship from his Munich days) and in 1934 returned to Turkey.
Glauer was an agent of the German military intelligence in Istanbul during the period 1942–1945, while apparently also working as a double agent for the British military. His German handler, Herbert Rittlinger, later described him as a "useless" agent (eine Null), but kept him on largely, it seems, because of an affection for "this strange, by then penniless man, whose history he did not know, who pretended enthusiasm for the Nazi cause and admiration for the SS but who in reality seemed little interested in either, much preferring to talk about Tibetans."Sedgwick, Against the Modern World, p. 97
Glauer is generally thought to have committed suicide by jumping into the Bosphorus on May 8, 1945. Current research indicates that this suicide may have been faked by Turkish intelligence, for whom Glauer was also working, and that he moved to Egypt, and died there in the 1950s.
Notes and references
Works
- Die Praxis der alten türkischen Freimauerei: Der Schlüssel zum Verständnis der Alchimie. 1924. Reprint, Freiburg im Breisgau: Hermann Bauer, 1954
- Der Talisman des Rosenkreuzers. Pfullinger in Würtemberg: Johannes Baum Verlag, 1925
- Bevor Hitler kam: Urkundlich aus der Frühzeit der Nationalsozialistischen Bewegung. Munich: Deukula-Grassinger, 1933
Further reading
- Albrecht Götz von Olenhusen, "Zeittafel zur Biographie Rudolf von Sebottendorffs"
- Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, The Occult Roots of Nazism: Secret Aryan Cults and Their Influence on Nazi Ideology, New York: New York University Press, 1994 ISBN 0814730604
- Mark Sedgwick, Against the Modern World: Traditionalism and the Secret Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004 ISBN 0195152972.
- Lucy M.J.Garnett: The Derwishes of Turkey (1912). London: The Octagon Press, 199O ISBN O 863040 52 7
1875 births | 1945 deaths | natives of Saxony | Nazi leaders | Anti-Semitic people
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